1968: The Year That Changed Everything

In 1968, I was overseas in the US Army. The US looked like a mess from there. When I returned, I was spat on and called a "Baby Killer." I hadn't gone to Vietnam. The only thing that my unit was to put Man on the Moon. It made me realize how little the hippies really knew.

1968.... I was 7 years-old. Funny how few articles begin, "1978." But then the bottom of the Baby Boom has never mattered much to the media or scholars. Our realities were certainly not the same.

We are old. What should we do now? Maybe we should have a happiness senectitude. So many babyboomers on boomermingle.com.

The sixties/seventies was the beginning of the end. Besides civil rights little good came from this period. And even civil rights didn't come out clean. Today people still claim racism even when there is none to be seen. Minorities still claim they deserve more rights even if it means more rights than whites. White people aren't even represented by civil rights organizations or respected as much as other races. Someday people will reach their peak and there will be a white 60s and I'm going to make sure I'm there to laugh at all of you because they ain't going to be protesting peacefully. Just think of thousands of KKK members and Neo-Nazis. Not going to be fun.
The time period just paved the way for laziness. Wonder why people sit around today and expect the government to give them free things? Why drugs are so popular? Why kids are losing their chances of growing up with a normal family?
The so called evil white traditional America was much better then this new lazy ideologies.. A minority of whites were racist. Doesn't mean they all were. something to many forget. Traditional America with civil rights can work and would be a better place to live.
Lets look at the traditional era (pre-sixties) and new era (post sixties) besides civil rights- now there is less racist whites, but passive racist minorities are filling the gap:
Old:
strong good family values, good morals, good companies (as in no ENRON), respectable politicians, unification, strong economy/actual capitalist economy, respectable criminals, less crime, less drug use, many hard working kids and people, wars that were faught for good, respect for our troops, positive yet free media, independent thinking, Broadway and the nice Hollywood
Now the new era:
high crime rates, high drug use, extremely biased and negative media, failing grades, evil companies, authoritarian Republicans (though thanks to Bush real non-Authoritarian Republicans are gaining ground), high divorce rates, TV/video games 9the use of), laziness, obesity (more than back then), Hollywood/celebrities, scum bag politicians, less capitalist economy, a falling economy (as capitalism decreases so does the chances of the economy jumping back up), mass division, pointless wars, more federal government, falling civil liberties, less independent thinking (on both sides, including the left as many comments from these forums have proved)
Now of course I am not talking about tech, medicine, communications, or transportation because I would choose the new era if that was the case.
This comment might be plauged in grammer and spelling mistakes. I'm sorry if it is..

As someone born in the 1980s, here is some advice to the "baby boomers of the 60s." You are the ones in power (politcally, economically) and you talk so much about change and how great you once were.

Why don't you put your money where your mouth is and do something about these ideals that you supposively represent. I think you are all so settled and comfortable with your own lives that you fail to stand up collectively for anything anymore with conviction.

That's right. I called you out....Baby boomers, where art thou?

I was born in 1960. Not because of this, I am facinated and have a reverence for the 60's. I am interested in the social issues, and I particularly support the concept of integration in the community at all levels, be it race, class, etc. even though that is not always a possible reality. Consider for example how difficult it is for the "rich" to belong to the "poor" and vis a versus. But America is the land of oppurtunity where the poor can and do become the rich -isn't that the American Dream. What socially intrigues me about the 60's is the caring and understanding that was taking place in America. Watch the "Woodstock" video and see the New York Chief of Police as he compliments the youth on their good behaviour. More than anything it is the music that I love best about the 60's. There was so much experimentation with sound and music and it all meshed with the idealism and explosive social issues that occurred then. The end of the 60's is considered by many of those who were old enough to understand this time as possibly the most fantastic time of their life. I wasn't even a teen then, so I am trying over time to understand what happened. I believe it was the greatest worldwide social change in my life, and unfortunately events after the turn of the decade took this change off course. Today I wish we could recover some of that great sense of genuine caring for one's fellow human beings, because I think we sorely lack that today.

Comment: I recently discovered a letter I sent to my brother with a postmark of
Dec.1967. I was living in Haight Asbury at the time, a runaway at the age of 16.
The timing of your article and the discovery of my letter urged me to send you segments from it. It truly described my experience during 1967-68.
"Dear_________ This place has really changed since the summer! You wouldn't believe it. ________, honestly it's really a shame. It seems like any place you go in the city now, the people are uptight and having nothing but hard time. Just about everyone I knew who lived in Fillmore has moved.It's getting so bad that
even the grown men and boys are scared to stay there anymore. The s----- are
infiltrating deeply into Haight and creating a general feeling of uneasiness in everyone. Add this to the increasingly cold, rainy weather and most people(s) (in
Haight anyway) lack of warm clothing and adequate living quarters (in some places there's as many as 20 people sleeping on the floor in rooms smaller than yours) AND as if that isn't enough: stricter law enforcement-A LOT OF POLICE BRUTALITY AND HARASSMENT. And as you probaably guessed by now, there's a general air of dis-content, hatred, irritation, hunger, sickness and lack of concern for the OTHER GUY. You wouldn't believe the amount of stealing and vulgarity and pushiness that's been going on. People are turning on their friends, kicking them out of their own apts. in the middle of the night, etc,etc. Just a horrible, sickening SIGHT, Most ot the people I've met recently are from New York and they're all getting ready to go back there. The feelling of togetherness and concern for the general welfare has completely vanished. It seems like everyone is living in constant fear or paranoia. ---Believe me ------, be glad that you are where you are. If I don't get into some better luck REAL SOON, I'll be joining you.----The only thing I know that's happened lately is that Donovan was in town. I didn't get to see him though.---Love, your sister"
Iwas so surprised to read this after all these years. I definitely described the difference in the Haight in just a few short months. It went from fun, free, the Diggers, the Free Clinic, seeing Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin,
true communal living, free love, etc. to fear, paranoia, and true danger-people were being robbed, stabbed, sold bad drugs, etc. What an unfortunate end to a unique moment in time.

What I remember about the 1960's in North Dakota was this was an intellectual time within the Congregational Church the morallity of Eric Bonhoffer taking part part in the plot to blow up Hitler, is it morally right to lie to your government as people did in Europe to hide people the Nazi's wanted to kill; the old black suit I was given to be married and buried in disappeared into sweat shirts, jeans, and tweed: the McCarthy period was ending and it became possible to question the government's war on Communism without being labelled as one, Native Americans and the handicap were people, too and should be treated as such; LSD and Speed, the Joan Biaz, Joni Mitchell, Buffy St. Marie, the Jefferson Airplane, Chicago, Bob Dillan, John Glen and Alan Sheppard, the death of the Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King, the beginnings of American schools being for all people and not just the white majority. This was a time of great change in the United States. Drugs and sex had always been deeply in grained in American society. That didn't change, just the variety of drugs increased and sex that had been mostly in private before became more public. A generation of young people were given a chance to go to college because of Spunick and the National Defense Loans. The last time this was possible was after World War II with the Veteran's benifits given then.

The Sixty's was about change not dirty sweet shirts, flowers, sex, and drugs. as Hollywood would have us believe now.

What I remember about the 1960's in North Dakota was this was an intellectual time within the Congregational Church the morallity of Eric Bonhoffer taking part part in the plot to blow up Hitler, is it morally right to lie to your government as people did in Europe to hide people the Nazi's wanted to kill; the old black suit I was given to be married and buried in disappeared into sweat shirts, jeans, and tweed: the McCarthy period was ending and it became possible to question the government's war on Communism without being labelled as one, Native Americans and the handicap were people, too and should be treated as such; LSD and Speed, the Joan Biaz, Joni Mitchell, Buffy St. Marie, the Jefferson Airplane, Chicago, Bob Dillan, John Glen and Alan Sheppard, the death of the Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King, the beginnings of American schools being for all people and not just the white majority. This was a time of great change in the United States. Drugs and sex had always been deeply in grained in American society. That didn't change, just the variety of drugs increased and sex that had been mostly in private before became more public. A generation of young people were given a chance to go to college because of Spunick and the National Defense Loans. The last time this was possible was after World War II with the Veteran's benifits given then.

The Sixty's was about change not dirty sweet shirts, flowers, sex, and drugs. as Hollywood would have us believe now.

I remember in 1968 I was a student at the U of MD and worked 4 hours every afternoon for Sen PhiliHard of Michigan. I remember after MLK was assassinated, I was driving down Noth Capitol street going to work and seeing black smoke 14 blocks on my right and 6 blocks on my left. I also remember seeing machine gunners behind sandbags on the steps of the US Capitol building, aand wondering if we had become a banana republic.
I alsi remember wathing the procession carrying Robert Kennedy's body from Union Station to the US Capitol, and thinking that once again a popular leader had been taken from us, not by a majority vote, but by
a malcontent's bullet.

I remember in 1968 I was a student at the U of MD and worked 4 hours every afternoon for Sen PhiliHard of Michigan. I remember after MLK was assassinated, I was driving down Noth Capitol street going to work and seeing black smoke 14 blocks on my right and 6 blocks on my left. I also remember seeing machine gunners behind sandbags on the steps of the US Capitol building, aand wondering if we had become a banana republic.
I alsi remember wathing the procession carrying Robert Kennedy's body from Union Station to the US Capitol, and thinking that once again a popular leader had been taken from us, not by a majority vote, but by
a malcontent's bullet.

For me 1968 has always been special: it was my high school graduation year and the year I first took a plane trip and traveled overseas.

I was delighted to have recently discovered the Elvis Presley/ Celine Dion mash-up duet ???If I Could Dream??? by American Idol. The year Elvis did the concert from which his video portion came: 1968. Year Celine was born: 1968.

Tom
Springfield, OR

http://stage6.divx.com/user/mossyra/video/1239683/Elvis-&-Celine-Dion---American-Idol

http://www.2livefools.com/foolsblog/2007/04/28/watch-how-elvis-and-celine-duet-was-done/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celine_Dion

I was born in 1981. I appreciate what the 60s meant. I appreciate the push toward a better understanding of our country. I am, however, sick and tired of hearing about the 60s. We shouldn't forget about the past, but please, can the love affair end? If I see another book on a Kennedy, student revolutions in France, or the Grateful Dead, I might implode. That might make some of you out there happy.

I was born on Dec. 5th 1945, which technically makes me a "pre-boomer", but in reality puts me at the leading edge. Isn't it time though to quit talking about ourselves. Our generation lacks the quiet dignity of our parents. We can't stop patting ourselves on the back because we think we accomplished something great, when in fact every generation has it's own great accomplishments.
So, enough with the "boomer files". Let's put the 60s to rest so maybe future generations won't look back and remember us as a generation hung up on itself.

I think this article tiptoes around the central motivating force of the 60's without ever mentioning it: the opening of the Pandora's box of human mental potential through the widespread, intentional use of marijuana and psychedelics, which helped bring people to the vision of human unity, from which the womens' movement, civil rights movement, ecology movement,and all other calls for planetary justice have sprung. The powers that be responded to this by demonizing these drugs and the inspiration they bring, and by curtailing the economic boom in the American middle class, so that people would have to work too hard (and pass too many urine tests) to dream such big dreams. Every candidate of both major parties has been committed to stuffing the genie of the 60's back in the bottle, to the great detriment of the positive changes in human evolution that were triggered at that time. The fact that our ruling elite has responded so negatively to the promise of the sixties is now putting our whole planet in peril. It is unfortunate but not unexpected that Newspeak did not have the courage or vision to mention that in this article.

As a baby boomer, the 60's were a time to stretch our imagination and take the leap of fatih to question what our government was telling us. Critical thinking was supported and forged in our minds in college. We took what was in taught in the classroom and took it to the streets. The whole world was watching and joined in denouncing the Vietnam War. While at Berkeley in 1968, I was exposed to so many ideas to address the social injustices. We really wanted to make this a better world - The Age of Aquirius.

Now after 39 years, we are still moving towards those dreams but reality has shown us that change does not happen as fast as we would want. Somehow the economic and social forces seem to be controlled by a global power elite. It is more realistic for me to fight the smaller battles locally to make social changes in my community to addess racial discrimination, social injustice, environmental protection and the homeless.
Actions speak louder than words and I will watch closely the candidates before casting my vote.

Not sure where all those question marks came from on the previous post.

why are our cities still segregated?
People are living in fear vs. faith and ignorance vs. truth. It appears to me that these are ???divide and conquer??? controll techniques perpetuated by the powers that be.

If women were liberated by the '60s, why do working mothers still feel so chained down?
I???m not a woman but I???ll bet financial slavery has a lot to do with it.

If Vietnam taught us how to be a humble superpower, why are we still bogged down in Iraq?
Graft and greed.